Nanowerk June 19, 2023
An international team of researchers (Argentina, Germany) demonstrated that light emitters with different resonance frequencies can asynchronously self-lock their relative energies by exchanging mechanical energy. They introduced polaromechanical metamaterials, two-dimensional arrays of μm-sized traps confining zero-dimensional light-matter polariton fluids and GHz phonons. A strong exciton-mediated polariton-phonon interaction induced a time-dependent inter-site polariton coupling J(t) with remarkable consequences for the dynamics. When locally perturbed by continuous wave optical excitation, a mechanical self-oscillation started and polaritons responded by locking the energy detuning between neighbor sites at integer multiples of the phonon energy showing asynchronous locking involving the polariton and phonon fields. Their finding paves the way for increased control of light sources and GHz-to-THz interconversion relevant to quantum technology… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Polaromechanical metamaterials. Credit: Nature Communications volume 14, Article number: 3485 (2023)Â